Category: Tolkien-Universe
Rating: M
Couples: -
Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)
Chapter: 45
Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me
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He had finally broken, returning to the hallways of his kin. Torture, humiliation, the slow breaking of his descendants... Was this the price they had to pay for their sins?
"Ah, My lord..." He stumbled across a Maia at the entrance to the part that held mostly his firstborn. "You ought not proceed."
"I... what?" He froze in his tracks, towering over the shadowy form. It seemed sculpted from the cold of the Halls, one of Namó's. "Why-ever not?"
"Tapestries are to be hung, without delay upon completion. Such is the rule." The genderless form evenly reported. "It is Lady Vairë's concern that you might not be able to handle this latest one."
"I might not be able...?" The first King of the Noldor repeated, looking ahead through the hallway, though he could not spot the tapestry from where they were standing. Likely the Maia had been posted here exactly for that purpose. "I think I can safely say I have seen my share of suffering." Fëanáro, Arakáno, Nelyafinwë, Arafinwë, Curufinwë and Carnistir... What could be worse than what all six had suffered?
"Of this, she has no doubt, yet she would still spare you the sight of this last tapestry. Long she debated whether to even hang it where you could come across it, and so break her own rules regarding her craft." When he moved to the side, the Maia did not mirror him. Clearly, if he chose to ignore the warning and head down the corridor, he wouldn't be stopped.
Taking a deep breath, he proceeded, passing by the shadowy form. "They are my kin." And he had hidden too long from them to start again now.
"As you wish, My Lord." The Ainu disappeared, while he proceeded past the tapestries depicting the only son of Míriel. After the tapestry of his Fall, Fëanáro's hallway was only filled with a handful of various events during the journey south before there was a diptych of his carrying his two sons out of the black mansion that they had been captive in. He was relieved at that, as it meant it would only be a short while until they were safely back in Beleriand.
What then had Lady Vairë woven that she'd set a Maia of her husband at the corridor-entrance to warn him off? A cold weight settled in his proverbial stomach, because Arafinwë was still captured. But what would that mean for this new Fëanáro's newest tapestry? Were they even connected?
"No..." He froze when he found the thing, blood-red border standing out from the dark grey of the walls behind it. Nolofinwë is wielding a whip, half of the top-half being a net of - he sincerely hopes artistically - long strands of leather. In the background, Arafinwë is kneeling in front of a form of fire, eyes wide at the sight before him.
And Fëanáro... is clutching two chains, back arched from some earlier impact.
Finwë shuddered, stumbling forward. Why...
"The price they are paying for their brother." He wheeled around, coming face to face with the Lord of these Halls. "Sérë informed me you passed them by."
"Sérë?" The Maia, he realized as he echoed the name. "So this...?" He gestured up, to the anguished forms of his sons.
"It was to be Arafinwë, at first, that Nolofinwë was to torture for his release." The Doomsman softly intoned. "But Fëanáro managed to at least change which brother it was to be."
"By offering himself as a target instead." He could see it now, how his eldest was not actually restrained in any way, but was holding himself in that position. "How?"
It was a rhetorical question, as it was likely the Vala would not know such intricate details, and he was surprised when he received an answer. "To quote Fëanáro; if either of us fails before the seven hour mark, you keep all three of us. All three sons of Finwë. If either of us fails before the fourteen hour-mark, you keep me and Nolofinwë. If either of us fails before the twenty hour mark, you may keep your choice of me or Nolofinwë."
He moaned at that, looking up at the tapestry again. "Twenty hours..."
"One for each of the wolves that died on Tol Sirion." Namó gestured with his head back into the Halls, were a tapestry of the event had dominated Nolofinwë's hallway for a long time. "It is an event that has left its' mark on Mairon."
"And so he intends to make it leave a mark on my sons." The father of the three depicted elves breathed, hands reaching for his two black-haired ones, covering them both as if that could shield them. "And you do nothing."
"We have done plenty, Finwë Noldóran, but some things cannot be prevented. By no one."